While on vacation in San Francisco, California, I took my first every Cable Car ride. It was mesmerizing to travel up and down the crazy hills through traffic and tourists on a trolley pulled by a cable. The ingenuity behind these cable cars is fascinating. I pulled out my Ricoh Theta S to share the experience with those who have not been. I rode it from Powell and Market St all the way to Fisherman’s […]

After waiting for the Ricoh Theta S I ordered to be in stock and ship, I finally got it right before our family trip to Colonial Williamsburg, VA to shoot it in 360° Virtual Reality. This VR tour will briefly let you see the fife and drum a horse drawn carriage and take you with us on a tour of the Governor’s Palace, Bruton Parish Church, the Colonial Gardens and the Magazine. […]

Take a virtual look around at the 8 million lights that make the Busch Gardens Christmas Town a spectacle. This 360 degree virtual reality video was filmed during a family vacation with the Ricoh Theta S camera. The contrast of light and dark is hard on any camera and this is no exception, but it’s still a fun look at the festivities.

I had the amazing opportunity to take a family vacation to Arizona and was able to spend the day at the Grand Canyon. After spending time with my family there this afternoon, my wife arranged for me to go back on my own to shoot the sunset. It was a breathtaking experience. I’ve travelled all over the world, but can’t think of any place that wowed me as much as the Grand Canyon.

This is a quick look at the apps and techniques I used to create this fun Iron Man composite of my son in one of his costumes. These tips can be applied in many ways and their are many apps that can do it. I have several “multiple exposure” or “compositing” apps, but like the Union interface and ease of use to quickly get great results.

Something unusual happened and we received 6-8″ of snow in southern Virginia! I decided to get out early and grab a few shots of one of my favorite locations. Follow me along via POV camera to see what goes through my head when I set out for a shoot.

Welcome to my awesome world of superhero children. Â Both of my boys are currently going through a superhero phase during an age when they understand role playing. It is a ton of fun. In their young minds, superheroes save the world – but make a point to say, “God can still beat up superheroes because He’s the strongest.” Â We just finished painting and modifying a bunk bed we found for $35 on Craigslist to be a fun fort for them, complete with a slide. Â Our youngest son Dominic just turned 3 and received costumes to allow them to transform into superheroes. Â Now that the bed project is done and I have room in my garage again, I decided to turn it into a “bat cave” photo studio to entice my boys to come out for a superhero photo shoot. Â So far I’ve only convinced Dino to dress up and come out, but I think that Domi will come around once he sees his brother’s, “Captain America,” photos.

I used a two-flash setup to light the photos, knowing that I would be editing them into the images show here. Â The look of the final product directed the lighting I was trying to achieve. Â I was counting on using ambient light spilling through the garage door as my key, so that I could use my two flashes as side lights, but as you can see it took longer than expected to convince him to come get dressed and come out. Â This was also my first attempt using my Fuji X-Pro1 with my Canon speedlites. Â The setup worked pretty well, but I was disappointed that the fastest shutter speed I could operate my Pocketwizards was 1/125s. Â While I love the shutter dial, the jump from 1/125s to 1/250s is a bit of a bummer. Â With my 5D, I was usually at 1/200S.

Regardless of the techy stuff, everything came together and we had a lot of fun. Â I showed him pictures of Captain America posters and poses and he did his best to mimic them – hilarious. Â Since he is a 4-year-old model/director, it was comical to try to get him to do the poses I wanted – he always had a better idea. Â At one point he took of his mask and put on the new swim goggles my wife had bought for him that night – she went shopping with Domi and I used the opportunity to be the crazy photographer dad. Â I used the goggle photos to work on the lighting while still allowing him to offer his creative input. Â After he ran around the yard adorned with his orange crab goggles, he came back ready for more photos as Captain America and turned on the charm – by charm, I mean, tough guy poses. Â After about 10 minutes of shooting we called it a wrap and went in to slide down his new bunk bed slide. Â Apparently superheroes slide faster – that or the fabric has something to do with it.

I stayed up late and edited the photos so he could see them first thing in the morning. Â In the end we didn’t save the world, but seeing the look of joy on his face when he saw his photos made him feel like he did.

Check out some of the unedited extras poses he through at me below. […]

We are very thankful for the freedoms that we have here in the United States because of the sacrifice of service men and women. Â We had a fun evening filled with fireworks, sparklers, and patriotic music.

I shot these clips in an afternoon while we had offsite meetings about upcoming work projects. The images were captured on a 5D Mark II with a Vello Shutterboss. I shot RAW and edited the images in Lighroom and assembled them in FCPX. I took Richard Harrington’s NAB time-lapse workshop and have been hooked on time-lapse video since. I’m still playing around with settings and finding out what works best. I don’t have any de-flicker software yet, so I decided to enhance the look with flash frames during the edit process.

And if creating a cool Timelapse video isn’t enough for you to try it yourself, you have the added bonus of hundreds of images to pick through to find still frames you like. […]